Introduction

Notes2 addresses the revision of the notes functionality in OpenOffice.org Writer to improve its usability and accessibility. Main goal is to resolve the main issues of the current implementation, which are reported by users. Furthermore, the notes implementation should at least provide the functionality of the competitors in the same class. In long term considerations, it is intended to consistently implement the notes functionality in the other OpenOffice.org modules. The main target audience is the Small-Business-User.

Notes2 is a project which has been started as one accepted project in Google's Summer of Code 2007 (GSOC).

The team working on the feature (in alphabetical order):

Name

OOo Nickname

Role

Mathias Bauer

mba

Development

Uwe Fischer

ufi

Documentation

Christian Jansen

cj

User Experience

Christoph Noack

christophnoack

User Experience

Maximilian Odendahl

mod

Development

Éric Savary

es

QA

Please note that the information in this Wiki is work in progress and may change.

Requirements

Scope of the Work

Provide direct and easy editing of notes to get rid of the old notes editing window.

Establish good accessibility for disabled users by providing keyboard shortcuts or using appropriate colors.

Integrate the new functions in the existing functionality, e.g. the OpenOffice.org Navigator.

Requirements Derived from Use Cases

Definition of Terms

The following list contains some definitions used in the subsequent text (in alphabetical order):

Term

Description

Shown in Graphic Below

Author

The user who edits or edited the Document.

no

Document

The Document is the file which contains the user's data. The type of the Document is dependent on the OpenOffice.org module used for editing, e.g. Writer text document, Calc spreadsheet document, Impress presentation document, Draw drawing document.

no

Document Content

The document content is dependent on the type of the Document. It includes e.g.

characters, strings, words, sentences, paragraphs

Sections (Writer)

Cells (Calc)

Slides (Impress)

Graphic Objects (Impress, Draw)

Input Fields (Base)

no

Document, Current

The Current Document is the Document that the user uses at the moment.

General name for the reference position of the Note Data which is located in the Document Content. For improved clearness, the Notes Data is not displayed inside the Document. Consequently, an Anchor is necessary to indicate the reference position.

no

Note Anchor Area

A special version of the Anchor which refers to a group of Document Content elements. The Anchor Area It is defined by a starting point and a end point according to the reading direction of the Document.

yes

Note Anchor Point

A special version of the Anchor which refers to a position inside the Document. The Anchor Point may be located between characters and therefore treated as character.

yes

Note Connector Line

The notes connector line is the graphical representation of the relationship between Notes Anchor and Notes Window.

yes

Note Data

General name for the data which is stored for the Notes, e.g. Note User Data or Note Property Data.

no

Note Functionality

The generic term which refers to the revised implementation of Notes handling in OpenOffice.org

no

Note Property Data

The Note Property Data refers to all the data of a note which does not belong to the Note user data. It may contain:

Roadmap

Development Releases

The functionality will be implemented step-by-step.

Development releases are available for testing at Notes2 Development Releases! Since developer milestone m248, the new Notes functionality has been continuously integrated into the main branch. Please test this functionality and provide feedback, as this helps us to improve the Notes functionality until it will be released officially. Please refer to the page Notes2 Development Releases for more information and download locations.

Information about the further development (including CWS status, issues and links) on what is planned can be found at Notes2 CWS.

Official Releases

Functionality available in the first release (OpenOffice.org 3.0):

Viewing and editing notes next to the document page

Accessibility support

The functionality which is already available in current version of OpenOffice.org

solid foundation for further improvements

Improved integration with the Writer change tracking feature (e.g. use the same colors for the authors of the document)

Time information for the notes (besides the already available date information)

Other Ideas

Mockups and Screenshots

This section contains mockups and screenshots:

Mockups are working models used for demonstration purposes. There is no real functionality at all, because the following pictures have been composed with graphic programs just to get a first impression how it will look like.

Screenshots show the behavior of the real development in OpenOffice.org Writer. Those pictures are updated more or less regularly.

Mockup for viewing the notes

Mockup shows the mode for "viewing" the notes:

different kinds of notes anchors in the document text:

anchor point (represents a character)

anchor selection

a side pane next to the document page for displaying and arranging the notes windows (including some information in the ruler above)

display of author and date inside the notes windows

different colors for different authors

(idea) a placeholder to just start typing the notes text (anchor would be placed at current document text position)

Mockup for editing the notes

Mockup shows the mode for "editing" the notes:

visualization of currently edited note

continuous anchor connector line

highlighted notes anchor selection (slightly darker border lines)

shadow for the notes window (whereas the shadow for the document page is removed)

spell checking inside the notes windows

Mockup for a hidden notes pane

Mockup shows the mode for a "hidden notes" pane (just an early idea):

notes pane is completely hidden (including notes windows)

the ruler above provides some information on the notes

information that there are (at least) some notes present in the document

the notes pane can be shown by the control element in the ruler bar

Notes in the current OpenOffice.org 3.0

Example for how the Notes2 functionality looks like on Ubuntu Linux 8.10 with "Clearlooks" visual theme.

Press Coverage and Comments

This section lists some of the noteworthy blog posts, web news or press coverage for the new Notes2 feature.

The German OpenOffice.org community contributed to the special magazine OpenOffice.org Spezial covering the release of OpenOffice.org 3.0. The article "Klebezettel ade! Die neuen Notizen im Writer" covers both the new features and the development. Here is the article (PDF), and more information about the magazine www.ooo-spezial.de.

The I-Team presented the Making the New Notes - Community, Cooperation, Concepts at the OpenOffice.org Conference 2008. Please have a look at OOoCon2008 Program Friday where you can find the:

http://www.jonobacon.org/2009/01/28/writing-a-book-with-free-software/: In terms of editing, it is also performed in OpenOffice.org, making use of its change tracking and notes features. This functionality is more than suitable for working on a book. I am also pleased to see this is being further refined in OpenOffice.org 3.1 with the ability to reply to notes. Interestingly, one of my editors uses Microsoft Word to edit. This means that my original .odt file is converted to a .doc file, edits are made in Word (using change tracking and notes) and then saved back in .odt format. ...Pretty nifty, eh?

I'm really encouraged by these developments. With the ability to add notes to Writer it is one small step to move the right hand margin in for the main text and put the notes just outside the margin. That makes a great tool for minutes of meetings as you can use the note for recording who has an action against the relevant sentence in the minute. That's important because when you later edit a minute early in the minutes then all the "Action: Joe" notes will move correctly and stay with their relevant lines. Export to pdf and that's a handy minute taking tool.

Do you have additional stuff for us? Tell us or add it to this section. Thanks!